The shift of emphasis from the London stock market's leading stocks to the second and third-ranking issues continued yesterday. The front-liners delivered another rather unconvincing performance, struggling to overcome a poor opening. But the mid and small-cap stocks made further rapid progress, with both the FTSE 250 and FTSE SmallCap indices finishing at or near their session highs.

Dealers said the switching from some of the market's recent favourites, notably pharmaceuticals, telecoms and banks into the cyclical sectors, such as engineering, chemicals and packaging had gathered momentum throughout the session and looked likely to continue.

Adding to the positive sentiment in the mid-caps was the latest quarterly survey published by the British Chambers of Commerce, which painted a much more positive picture for British manufacturing industry. The patchy showing by the FTSE 100 was triggered by a similar performance on Wall Street overnight. At the finish the FTSE 100 was a sorry-looking 27.5 lower at 6,466.1, with a mid-morning rally, which took the index back above 6,500, quickly overwhelmed.

The FTSE 250 index, heavily weighted with the current market-friendly cyclical stocks, extended its rise over the past three trading sessions to 148.4 or 2.7 per cent. Similarly the FTSE SmallCap posted its third consecutive gain.